Hey friends! If you recognise any of the LARP moments described in this video, please don't name the game or the organisers! I think it's important that we talk about times when LARP wasn't so good so that everyone can learn from it, but it's equally important that we don't turn that into dunking on independent creators for their past mistakes. Keep it civilised in the comments

43:23 Food $200 Crew $150 Rent $800 Decorative Antique Real Steel Forged Sword $3,600 Utility $150 someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my LARP is failing

Discord mod for a LARP here. Discord*has* added a lot of features that makes them better for organization, like resource pages, forum channels, events, polls, etc. But even as one who believes Discord is amazing for communities, a Discord will NEVER be *enough*. You *need* a website for onboarding new players, that is also updated with event information so those who just want event info and aren't interested in being social don't have to go make a Discord or Facebook account. Having a Discord for the community to stay connected between games is a jolly good time, but please don't make it a requirement or pretend it's user-friendly enough for onboarding. It isn't. Please and thank you.

My only large (100+ people) LARP experience involved an onboarding "ceremony" that took place in pitch blackness, we were listening to someone describing our death and "rebirth" into the world... and then nothing. We were turned out into the rest of the LARP with no... guild guides or anyone to come recover the "newly birthed" characters. I proceeded to get lost, have "stun" cast on me by a game admin character who didn't stay long enough to explain to me wtf I was supposed to do... I then lost my phone and asked logistics to help me find it, but they said the best they could do was wait until morning. I was left to hide behind a tree in the dark, unsure how to get back to my tent, no idea who to ask for help, no phone and no way to contact my ride home. Boy am I glad this larp was free for first timers, $60 to have a panic attack in the dark would've made me unimaginably angry. So yeah. LARP is hard to do well. I've had several very enjoyable small larp experiences but... I think it's hard to just scale that up without a LOT of people present to offer new player support and onboarding.

im really happy you brought up fridge access. i used to work in a hotel that didn't have mini fridges in the rooms but advertised them on the booking site. so many people would come down and ask me where the fridge was because they had medication that needed to chill, and not too many of them were pleased to learn that they would need to give us their meds to keep in the kitchen refrigerator. a lot of people don't understand that having proper accomodations doesn't just mean ramps and elevators all over the place.

you mentioned empire and i had a flash back to when i was going to attend empire larp and was bullied relentlessly on their facebook group over the dress i showed off that i was going to wear, i was slut shamed, threatened to be sa'd and sent death threats over my charterers backstory and the fact i was going to be wearing dress that god forbid showed off my cleavage. i eneded up not feel;ing safe enough to even attend because if thats the kind of community then i wouldn't survive. id love to see more people talk about how nasty larpers can be

In case anyone is coming to the comments for further catering advice: for the GF crowd i would skip GF bread and go for a (non-wheat) noodle, rice or potato salad. GF bread is pretty unpleasant. Also be aware that cross-contamination can happen really easily in a buffet, so make sure you know if you need a separate area or prepackaged free from food for allergy sufferers.

Have I ever been to a LARP? No. Am I liable to? Also no. Did I watch this excellent video anyway? Yes.

I was at a larp once where everyone got writeups of dreams their character had on the friday night. Cool! Dreams come with RP effects. Okay! I was excited as I opened the envelope. Then I was confused. Then I tried it, because I thought it might go somewhere. And it was as bad as I feared. My "cool dream" imposed the same penalty as failing at combat challenges would have done, and the RP effect was "you are really depressed until one of the four characters who picked the skill that solves all plot decides to cure you, which will take a while because they are very busy people". Yeah, I didn't pay real money to pretend to be depressed in a pretend world where I had no ability to influence pretend events. *facepalm*

Thank you for this video. It reminds me of something: large events run by amateur "small creators" or even major events with uninformed employees, are often so unsafe as a multiply disabled person that I can't even think of going in case something goes wrong and the amateurs leave me stranded. Something as simple as "going to a basketball game with my university" (read: socializing in a box) in the hands of 24-year-old social media interns, became an incredibly painful and dangerous situation when something went wrong. LARPing is something I have always wanted to try, but having to trust people without disabilities to understand my abilities and make an accessible environment has just failed too many times. It's become unsafe, it's been poorly done, and I never have a good time. I cannot trust people to be able to help me in an emergency unless I myself have contingency planned everything. So often, these events are just not safe for disabled people.

"It's a LARP. No plot survives contact with the player base." --- Totally true.

Larps have already had cease and desists (a few, in fact!) I generally don’t attend games that are ripping an IP directly because they’re always lazy and badly done/ not my interpretation of the world and thus disappointing. I’d be perfectly happy to be required to publish my event accounts…because I already keep them? I’m genuinely amazed and horrified by the number of events that run at a loss, I flat can’t afford to prop up a budget out of my own money, so don’t. You’re right, it’d be interesting and useful for people to see. I run larps as my main job, and honestly it’s a nightmare in many ways because of the weird place we sit in as a professional company that lots of people just don’t want to acknowledge are that - from having to repeatedly enforce boundaries of professionalism with people (“No it is not appropriate to collar me at another game to ask about a rules query, please email it so the team can see it and it will be discussed and a reply/action created for it”) to people not wanting to hear professional opinions (“Do you have pyro training? Then shut up because I do. Do you have direct experience and knowledge of the imitation fire arms laws? Then shut up because I do!”) Also, for spreading game - I use a magic tick sheet, every player gets a tick when I/the crew see a player involved in something cool - all players should have three ticks by the end of the event, and often who does and does not have ticks will help inform who I target plot to as the weekend progresses. I love a bit of equality because I hate being the un-chosen one! Anyway, excellent video, perfect quantity of salt. Why do we do this hobby?!

42:52 i've encountered a singular instance of in-character food being good. the whole event was themed around a royal wedding, and the dessert with dinner on the evening of the wedding was a (simply decorated, probably made from a box) wedding cake. but yeah, keep fantasy bullshit away from food

I'm from the USA where there's a lot less regulations on who can buy and set off fireworks. We planned what we thought was a little fireworks show by dropping 40 bucks on a box that didn't say what was in it, but you just lit one fuse and it promised 10 minutes of fireworks so we weren't expecting more than roman candles (the ones that fizz up like 30 feet in the air). So we warned the guy who was scared of fireworks to stay in the main social area at one end of site (ahead of game, with his permission) and went to the other end of site with anyone who was interested to set off the box. Y'all. I have been to official small town fireworks shows that were smaller than this box of boom. The box wasn't unsafe, it was just way to big and loud. So even if you think, eh, I know what to expect around fireworks, be careful, they can surprise you and you may have to apologize to a very scared player.

I live nearby Evermore, and I went with a couple of friends a few years back. We all played D&D, but none of us have experience with LARP. We had a pleasant time, but completely missed out on the story. We didn’t realize how active you would have to be to get information, and we had absolutely no idea where to start. It took a couple hours for us to realize there was no real place to start. And then when we got a little bolder with talking to NPCs, we had a hard time finding anyone with important information. We got some vague quests that we didn’t think were worth it and some we tried anyway. There was one place that had a long line that we didn’t want to stand in and decided we’d check it out later, only to find that we had missed the big thing there because we didn’t know anything about it. On friend did have to leave early, but me and the other one stayed until closing, but instead of going to the closing ceremony (which we learned about a little late, but still while it was going on), we chilled in the Hobbit-like building and talked. The workers did make sure we knew what was going on and that we weren’t missing it on accident. We still had a good time. We bought some things from the vendors and enjoyed walking around. Also, I loved the bird and reptile show. Saw an owl skeleton and it’s stuck with me ever since. We made plans for trying to actually do the quest next time by having characters to role play as, but we didn’t do that. I did think that it was something that you had to figure out how to participate by going back a few times, though I never got around to doing that. It’s interesting to know that it is more likely that it’s just not well organized. Though, the actors all seemed to be doing a good job. Really interesting to learn more about LARP in general and made me interested in trying it sometime if I ever get the opportunity. :)

As someone who enjoyed the Jenny vid but who's closest 'involvement' into larping is a BFF whose into D&D (not the same thing I know but level with me), watching this illuminated what exactly the guy who founded Evermore was trying to do and why it would be fun if it was done right

Here from the Jenny video. This is genuinely fascinating to me now.

This video is giving me flashbacks of my experiences having to handle organizing and hosting weekend work retreats and workshops for anywhere from 10-40 people on several occasions at one job I had. Ever since then I have had it drilled into my head how much detailed planning needs to go into every facet of hosting any kind of event from the ground up, as well as lining up exactly who is doing what before, during, and after the event. Since then, I’ve been surprised the number of times I’ve had to step up into being an organizer on the spot for events where I was showing up merely to be a casual extra pair of hands to help. I’ve concluded no matter what type of event it is, that very few people really think through all the steps of how to guide a group experience, from what resources will be be needed to what should be prepared beforehand to safety to clean up. It’s a specific skill set that’s so vital for this.

On the weapons point, I agree you cannot have guns in play without following the rules. We have made The larp l attend (Stargate, yes we did get permission although God knows what may happen now with Amazon in charge of MGM' s IP stock) informs the police local to the site we are running. The police give us an incident number to quote if we are ever stopped. We have had a policeman turn up at the event with the excuse of checking stuff was OK when they later admit they wanted to look at the cool stuff. We have the correct Public Liability Insurance for it. It takes extra work but can we done.

Great video! I've kinda considered LARPing before, but this was a great view into the potential issues that can arise from LARP even as a non-LARPer who knows basically nothing. Also I know it wasn't the point, but honestly the bit about LARPers wanting to beat up unicorns because a crew member improv-ed that their family was murdered by unicorns was pretty funny - the idea of an event where that's intentionally part of the plot would be pretty amusing.

Discord! Yes! Thank you! Asynchronous stream of consciousness conversation with multiple threads and virtually no way to keep up with the timeline! SO. FREAKING. CONFUSING. I'm so glad someone else said it!

Yes. Every word of this. Yes

Have you considered putting these ideas into a framework that could be shared within the community? I mentioned in a previous comment that I’m a programmer. One thing my community is great at is sharing tools that were built to help themselves but they see the potential for it to help others. This has super charged the industry. Programmers can be surprisingly generous with their work. I’m sure there is an ego factor in there but given how many open source projects there are that have produced incredible pieces of software (I’m looking at you GIMP (very similar to Photoshop)) it’s hard not to conclude that we like to collaborate and share.

My parents were huge larpers and I heard so many stories about games ruined because the GM gave the best roles to people he was sleeping with/ were sleeping with other people in his polycule. Larp drama is unfortunately seemingly baked into a lot of it.

Watching this video really made it even more obvious that those who have the knowledge & the outlook/overview to run a successful LARP that is good for everyone (like yourself, Ash) aren’t ever going to run that LARP because they understand the amount of work and dedication and time and money that it would take to do it, and that is a depressing thought.

I hate to say it, I've had a good themed menu experience at a larp ...ok the menu was just really well done traditional polish food but it was both *good*, filling and on theme for the style of fantasy larp that was being done All the rest of the themed menu stuff Ive seen has lined up fairly well with your exp tho

As someone who has felt held back from UK larp due to the costs and accessibility issues (food allergies, physical disabilities, etc), but love the concept of taking part. However, I have been to a few fantasy balls and fantasy or fairy festivals, and I think some of these issues are equally spread across the entire UK fantasy events community and probably beyond. I luckily had the money at time of booking to get a proper studio flat close enough to the shuttle buses for Fantasy Forest 2024, and I'm so grateful they've put the busses on both days this year or I'd be unlikely to be able to go. I've had multiple smaller fantasy events cancel on me or show up and see that it's really not what I paid for (from allergy exposures to a camp and market having 50% of the advertised stalls, food vendors and entertainment acts never show up). To the point where I now get everything accommodation and travel related refundable just in case. I've also had to dissuade friends being drawn into these "larp lite" fantasy events multiple times to the point where I might be sorting a Hobbit party in a park to replace the 'hobbit larp' being thrown this summer. I've learnt from my mistakes and how to pick up red flags and I can only hope that they get better in the future for everyone.

I've never larped, but having watched this video, i have been convinced I'm not ready to run a larp.

Made me laugh at the dog part, we have two dogs on our larp property and I am a taxidermist necromancy faun druid who has a squirrel (taxidermy) companion I threw it to set off a trap and I ended up having a good old chase with the dog who grab him (His name was also sonic for good reason) it was funny as all get out but man was I tired by the end of the night and Marcus my taxidermy squirrel ended up losing a limp which gave great roleplay of me being devastated and having to fix him via necromancy cause the local "wolves" attacked him lol.

Amazing video, super on point about larp runners. I think sometimes even if organisers are coming in with an idea that this is a collaborative thing or just for their friends or whatever, the organisers still have a duty of care to the people at that game. Generally the players and crew are trusting that the organisers have their best interests at heart and are going to take care of the game in such a way that the players are safe and that the organisers want them to have a good time. And when the larp organiseers are favouring a few people in the game or aren't on top of the logistics (or are outright creepy and being propped up by other players), that feels like a betrayal of that trust.

It was really nice to hear the sort of menu Dave and I do as standard pretty much being listed off in your catering section- so, thank you for that! I do disagree with you on the protein issue though; one of the common failure modes for event vegetarian food is to serve the meat meal but with the meat just not included, and especially with something like chicken breast that definitely *is* protein that has been removed!

"Normally I say don't be the first person to die at your larp." Girl, same, but for HEMA Tournaments

TOFU whisked INTO MASHED POTATOES? Jesus Christ 😂 Anyway, I greatly enjoyed Jenny's video, and now I am greatly enjoying your video. I don't larp, i don't really do theme parks, but boy am I loving the discourse 😆

Thank you!!!! I hate Discord too and for everything, not just this. I don't want to scroll through hundreds of people stream of conscious comments to get the actual stuff I came for. I hate when an influencer's only mean of communicating announcements is through Discord. I joined your Patreon for this stuff, I don't want to have to interact with everyone in the fandom just to get some information.

One of the best tools in a LARP is Shaker Players, that is players who you can give a large number of in game tasks and tell them "Get someone to do these things" or will just make up their own stuff. This is one of my favorite roles to play in Vampire the Masquerade or Requiem or similar White Wolf games. A friend and I used to run a game that would have regularly 14+ players and it was both of us, one as Story Teller and the other was a Shaker with their own schemes. I was very detail focused but tended to get a lot of "clunk" from trying to add too many details, he was narrative focused but tended to deal with fraying as his big narratives failed to drag people in properly and the two of us balanced out so well. Seriously even in a game with 50+ people just the two of us could probably have managed most of the players through an incredible amount of contrivance and delegating

I learned SO MUCH from this video, instantly subscribed!!!! I know near nothing about LARPing, and never thought of the mechanics behind managing a group in a safe and engaging way. So enlightening!

As a long-time LARPer I deeply appreciate this video. Thank you!

GOD this video was so refreshing as a LARPer who has been feeling these things in my local scene. I've talked about so many of these topics nearly verbatim. I feel like this video needs to be seen by every LARPer, runner and player alike. S I'm on my journey of writing my first system and game many of these are things I've wanted to try to tackle and I've gotten some amazing ideas from you here, especially how to run simultaneous encounters with smaller numbers that relate to each other without "fomo" questing. Absolutely a phenomenal video. Absolutely validated to hear someone else say the phrase "fighting puzzle" because I've been trying to get that to catch on in my circles because, yes, it's all puzzles!

My favorite red flag about Larp "tickets"; when you can no longer go to the event for whatever reason (emergency happens, or you just don't want to go anymore) so you ask for a refund, only for the organisers to say they don't do refunds and I have to sell my ticket to another prospective player and get my money back that way. Happened a few times now. I do love my hobby, but so many organisers seem to want the benefits of being a business without dealing with any of the negatives involved. They're providing a service at the end of the day.

1:55 Thank God someone is finally talking about logistics! I grew up in a concert promotion family then worked as an Art Director & Production Designer, following years of Set Dressing in Hollywood. The majority of my CV are mid to big budget TV and films. Having had a childhood like Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” and adulthood crawling the greased ladder that is Los Angeles (with a few early rave promoter friends thrown in for good measure) it’s always boggled my mind-like really put the zap on my head-that these hyper creatives in the LARP and reenactment worlds don’t take logistics more seriously. There is one maxim that will forever cross all common denominators of media and performance: if it ain’t on the page it ain’t on the stage. One might add that without deep pockets and a solid business plan, there is no stage either.

I am so glad the KZfaq “gods” recommended this video after seeing Jenny’s, and I am wildly confused why this video doesn’t have a ton more views! Thank you, Ash! I’m binging all of your other content, and it’s all so good! My favorites are the longer videos - the video essays, etc. I really like hearing your experiences and perspectives. Also, in 2020, my lockdown toxic trait was acquiring several vintage sewing machines (on top of the machine and serger I already had, plus a glorious cover stitch machine I also purchased in 2020). And, like, I can barely sew 🙈 I need to start practicing and making things with these machines and fabric I have hoarded. Thanks for giving me the inspiration to start learning to sew again (I did make extremely basic doll quilts as a kid). I would absolutely love a beginner-friendly sewing video. Maybe just the absolute basics, maybe a few beginner-friendly garments, how to make your own LARP kit from scratch for novices, or even how to alter/tailor garments off the rack (for LARP or real life). I’ve never LARPed, but I’ve been curious about it for several years. Jenny’s video reminded me of the topic. Unfortunately, I live in Las Vegas, which seems to have an extremely limited number of LARPs. I am considering to move next year, so maybe I need to research where there are plenty of LARPs 😂

Discord and its consequences for hobbies and a myriad of other things have been unfathomable. I have seen companies put important faq information, and updates, key clarifications, only on discord. Hhere it is unsearchable on the wider internet, and you need to join to have any chance of knowing it ever happened. Everything else is up to the whim of someone taking a screenshot and throwing it on some other social media. I despise this with every microfiber of my being, what are you doing, what are WE doing.

I’ve never been to a LARp. I don’t know why I watched this but I found it interesting I will say as a gun owning American who loves guns- I absolutely agree that realistic prop guns should not be allowed in a game. That is absolutely wild. I should know with extreme certainty that someone is handling a fake gun.

Man, before this video I sometimes thought that maybe I would try LARP some day.... But yeah I don't think that's gonna work for me. I'll have to stick to D&D in the comfort of my own house.

Necroposting to note that this sounds exactly like Dark Lord of Derkholm (by Dianna Wynne Jones). I don't know that I had thought this before, but somewhere around 23:50 when you were talking about monitoring player experience I thought, "Ah, yes, just hire some Wizard Guides and have them outfitted with radios." Basically, you're only going to get a LARP that fully works if you can leverage actual demons and subjugate an entire magical world.

This was fascinating. Thank you for sharing!

This reminds me of the Rick Mercer rants where he explained an event 😊 I really enjoyed this and learned a lot.

My two "favourite" LARP organising memories are one person who needed a very important prop for a game and talked about how awesome it would be all the time, but when asked if they knew how to build it, knew anyone who could build it, had allocated any budget to building or buying it, just had a blank stare in their eyes and said "no". And the other one, where one guy literally wanted his name on it, wanted to have full control over who gets invited and over the budget, and then threw a tantrum and cancelled the project, when we five other people didn't do all the work on our own without him lifting a finger.

10:51 I'm not usually 'that friend' but one of my proudest accomplishments is that we tried to run a house rule on a card game and the first time we did I won by an insane margin by immediately finding the exploit that the house rule didn't account for. We now know why the rule was written the way it was 😂 I definitely feel that with dnd, where as a dm there's just a lot of subjecting people to things I haven't done before and can't really foresee the outcome of, even when we communicate about it (and we didn't communicate, it's been a huge source of problems both as a player and as a DM when the gamerunner does things no one else knew would happen)

Fascinating details. I haven't larped but I have put on many a medieval event. The complexity of action would seem to require a skilled crew to manage it well. Very much enjoyed hearing about the underpinnings and of course, the hats.

This just came up in my recommended as a fellow avid Jenny watcher and I loved all the references!! You are so fun to listen to! I have never LARPED but at least now I know how not to haha!

Your salt keeps us alive and sustained during this longest parlour larp famine

I did re-enactment because, despite the swords and axes being made from wood and metal, it was still safer than LARP. That and there's no self-righteous elves

First video I've watched from you and I really enjoyed :)

This is a very good video for any LARP organiser to watch. Nice job :)

I don't have any experience with LARP (just some tabletop RPG), but this was still a quite fascinating video that leaves me interested in the subject. I quite enjoyed Jenny's video and this was a really neat parallel looking at similar concepts from a slightly different angle.

thank you, this helped explained so much of why i stopped doing LARP

Hey! Don't know if you'll ever see this, but it'd be really helpful to talk about larp even currently active in the UK that are perhaps more accessible to newbies like me..? Thank you so much for this video, it's good to know what to look out for!

Well done video!

Note on NPC briefing. If you don't want that to happen, make a 2nd set of characters who look really close come out and go, "Hey some people were out here trying to fuck up our reputations by saying there's unicorns out here." Makes it easy and you can build in a little intrigue plot into that or leave it as a fun little conflict somewhere.

I don't even larp, but i enjoy your essay so much I need to subscribe

I don't LARP but I do spin and I'm GLAD you know how much those cost and I would NOT let LARPers near mine! Thankfully mine looks really modern I don't think LARPers would want to go near it.

I love my little weekly local LARP that doesn't cost money and has a lot fewer or these problems

Ever since I saw Jenny’s video I was hoping someone with firsthand knowledge of LARP would talk about it. Thank you for this!

I've done a bit of being on larp game running team in the UK and more recently a small part of a big one in Europe. And yeah I think you really nailed a lot of points.

7:43 -you shouldn't accept it from Empire, either; you're paying to be there I've run games, and larger games. If Empire - or CP, or Gathering- sorted their logistics out, they can absolutely provide you with a fun game that you don't have to "make your own fun" Please, it's not just smaller LARPs that do this that we shouldn't support - it's ANY LARP Empire, Mythodea, CP, Gathering... the scale is nothing but narcissism

Here's a pro tip for all organizers: all of the problems here can be avoided by honest and full disclosure. Is your LARP's venue a forest of a 'bring a tent' type? Say so. Do you want me to come be an NPC for your pal's birthday LARP? Hell yeah I will make a thug mercenary character and sit in a camp for three hours only to die embarrassingly! It's when you make me put three days of work into reading the rules and making a backstory only to sit in a camp for three hours only to die that there is a problem.

i’m a year late but i loved this video!

I want to start a regular LARP that is similar to like the Renaissance Festival where it runs for like a season so people can do for like a weekend a whole week or like different weekends throughout a full long time. I wanna buy a piece of land that was a few acres for 1 million that looked like it might be big enough here in Maryland I've been looking at land plots, but I have absolutely zero money and then you'd have to also spend maybe another half million to build it build permanent structures if I win the mega or Powerball and get that type of money I'll do it and it would be to make for the people that aren't there permanently. It's a travelers village. It's on a major road towards the holy land, where the Crusaders go so there are nights and pilgrims from all different walks of life and there's. Raiders they come to try to attack the pilgrims in steel from them and the nights are there to protect them from these rogue bands, trying to steal all the money that the pilgrims are carrying

Sigh LARP is totally best in my mind from 20+ years ago, with the good times enhanced and bad times forgotten. All it takes is one bad experience, and the cost and time investment of LARP (especially as you get older and more responsibilities come) mean that its hard to go back to a bad game or group. That applies as an organiser and player. The "chosen one" plot and "plots for mates" are the worse. Sigh some things never change.... maybe organisers who do this are “metaLARPing” as dodgy politicians or wannabe gangsters and mafia-dons, handing out favours. I have no idea why google reminded me about my LARP-days, but good video with serious things explained in an entertaining way! 😀

Also, your void is adorable!!! 💜🐈‍⬛💜

this is the best video that i stoped 20 seconds in to type a comment about how this is the best video that i...

oh maaan i remember the weapons thing from my short-lived cosplay career. just put an orange tip on your gun!! suspend your disbelief! and for christ's sake do not draw your katana in the lobby.

Ooo, is galactic star cruiser next since it's Disney tried to do a larp and Jenny covered it?

Yes, an investor should be given information about costs. And a customer who buys a ticket is not an investor and is entitled to a refund and a decent experience and safe experience.

This is a great video and it popped up on my feed just after I was talking to someone about running a game so I'm taking notes. Also I had an 'I understood that reference!' moment at 31:06

Man i thought discord was bad until i went to an event run entierly through telegram groups, except my department which was still doscord and no one told me about.

que! LARP sounds like it could be a horrible mistake or a really fun weekend, but if I ever find the desire to actually go to one I would certainly require REAL FOOD. Great video.

I've had the wrong pitch for a LARP event even when the writers and creators are known when it wasn't properly communicated what sort of event it was. Rather than a 'run around in the woods killing monsters and solving problems for the lot' it was more a 'giant tavern interactive with scheming and plotting'. Not a terrible event but one I didn't want to do.

28:27 You aren't allowed to wear that unless you are about to slap Roy Scheider

I'm sure I recall hearing that someone trying for a Discworld Larp has already been at the end of a Cease and desist letter.

Prior to this the total amount of time I had spent thinking about LARP could best be expressed in single-digit minutes. It's so obvious, but having given it no thought previously its still an absurd eureka moment... of course it's a huge logistical wonder to even get one of these events going. It's so wild to suddenly be aware of an entire subculture, not as a picture-book of tropes, but as an entire joint group of consumers and the effort it takes to indulge in this hobby. By that same token, to suddenly become aware of a potentially fun activity to look into in your own area.

I personally don’t do larp anymore because I don’t have a friend group. I personally don’t like when people are clicking and making a situation so unjustly so i have a horrible experience. I don’t enjoy being bullied or told i can’t reasonably work towards a medieval job. Meaning I can’t stand when people tell me I have to wait years to become a medieval executioner or have any other skills. I don’t drive and a lot of times I went to larps and ended up unfortunately stranded because it was in a rural area and there was no uber available. I don’t like when they made me feel bad for things i can not control. I unfortunately never had a good experience with larping and I wish I did but now I just do medieval reenactments because I get to come into the hobby as a executioner and work on my persona from there. I also have plenty of helpful kind people around who actually care about my hobby and want me to have a good time. I agree with what you are saying about larp I never had a good experience with larp because of these very reasons and I had depression at that time of my life when i effortlessly tried to find my place and i kept getting rejected or treated unfairly. I now am so happy doing reenactment and not larp. I am happy having fair rules. I don’t want everything to be perfect and not everything is fair but when things are made purposefully to be so unfair that it hurts others that is when it draws the line for me.

so true

This was amazing and all of these are just harsh truths that we have to deal with as a community, just as I had to deal with my own constant wincing as I realized how many of these I have been guilty of in the past, especially when starting out. We are as organizers just very bad at saying 'sorry' and doing better next time instead of elaborately justifying stupid stuff. The only point I have to kind of disagree with is the themed food because I had so many amazing themed meals, but then again I do realize I am an omnivore so I may have had an amazing meal that was, say, a horror for vegans. So your point stands, it is risky. Also, thank you for pointing out the parasocial stuff we do not talk about often enough. I mean, I am fully convinced we are family based on the one time you played my dad and you would totally lend me all your stuff, but for other people, you know ;).

I literally have that same hat with "Wizzard" on the front of it.

Wish I could post pics!

I'd be interested to hear you rant about cryptography puzzles

I've lowkey been wanting to join a LARP for a while, ever since I joined a one-off L5R thing at a convention when I was, like, 13. Evermore has reignited the interest, but I'm very shy, hesitant to join a group if I don't know their vibes, don't know how to find a group to begin with, and roleplaying with strangers is such an emotional risk. I've been burned before by bringing a queer PC to an unfamiliar group and watching her get misgendered for the whole opening session, or just getting blank stares/improv "No"s every time I try to engage. And that's just with normal tabletop gaming! I'm looking forward to watching this video. I'd love to get a better idea of how the LARP community is doing nowadays.

This is an excellent video that explains things very well and I know it wasn't your intention to comment on Evermore specifically, but I wanted to clarify some things in regard to Evermore. Evermore is often described as a "LARP-Park" but that's only true in the most basic of senses. There are 'live-action' characters that guests can directly interact or 'roleplay' with, but beyond that the Evermore experience is very different from typical LARP. I would say that maybe ~60-70% of the criticism here does not apply to Evermore (but the remaining 30-40% does VERY much). Evermore is often pitched as a chance for guests to be the hero in their own story but in practice that really isn't true. The stories are written primarily for the characters and the amount the guests can really impact it is quite small except for in particular circumstances and even then only in particular ways. In the past there were guilds guests can join and advance in over several visits to the park, and that was largely the extent of the "gameplay" that happened at Evermore. Guests could interact with characters at their own leisure and choose the questions and topics they discussed, and that sometimes could lead to clues and story threads that were more hidden than others... and that's about it. Once again, this is an excellent video but I wanted to make sure there wasn't a misconception about what Evermore is. Feel free to respond with any questions.

So, much of this is really insightful and I really enjoyed watching this. Absolutely agree that Larp Is Not Theatre and the Theatrical Performance exemption Does Not Apply to LARP and to say so is indeed, bullshit. However, the laws regarding Realistic Imitation Firearms do not in any way regulate the posession of them, and no personal liscense is required for RIF purchase or ownership - the UK is not *that* draconian. You may be thinking of the UKARA registry which is an airsoft database of regular players which retailers can search to confirm a players right to purchase as an Airsofter, which is one of the recognised exemptions. For anyone interested further - the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 and later the Police and Crime Act 2016 regulate the Sale, Import, and Manufacture of Realistic Imitation Firearms. A retailer selling a RIF to a Larper needs to be able to confirm that they, the seller, have a reasonable defence to sell it to them - the person buying it isnt getting in trouble for buying it, the seller is in trouble for selling it to you - and the Theatre exemption isnt going to cut it for them. This also applies to *importing* - so if a Larp is telling their players that they can avoid getting a visit from Plod because they ordered a RIF from China because they are covered by the Theatrical exception, this is 100% wrong and they risk getting their players in serious trouble. There is *no* requirement for transport of RIF needing specifically labeled containers, so long as they are transported in a manner which does not place the public in fear. A rifle bag, a guitar case, a suitcase - all are fine so long as they are transported unloaded and out of sight. The restrictions you mention relate to prop firearms that use blank ammunition which are a whole different bundle of legistaltive isses. It *is* possible for a larp to sufficiently qualify for an exemption if it is A) a modern day larp B) Involves military or law enforcement scenarios and C) Maintains Public Liability Insurance and a Membership roster. The problem is as you say, is that many larps dont bother and give very poor and legally suspect advice to thier players. Organisers need to do their homework and make sure that they, and their players, are complying with the relavent legislation, or avoid using RIF at all.

Watch to the end for a cute cat 🐱 ❤

Pretty sure I recognise several of those larp sites from the descriptions...

"Themed" food can work in theory, but by the gods DO YOUR RESEARCH lol. Medieval people were people, and they had the same wants and needs as anyone regarding food (and everything else). Due diligence is... well, due.

Sadly Evermore has been closed and they are in search of a new owner

As always I find these insights interesting, even if I don't LARP

Wow! I really know all of this!

We have said for years that our accounts are free to look at, no-one has ever asked.

I really enjoyed this video, lots of food for thought (though not the tofu and mashed potatoes kind)! Also loved hearing all your fun nonsense moments that you did enjoy -- one of mine recently was a group of us playing hopscotch to get a barrel of "frog eggs" (water balloons) across a pond, using a spoon! It was a really silly and much needed break from some mounting tension!

I didn't think visitors were supposed to larp their own stuff at Evermore Park. I thought you just went to play in their game. Didn't realize people were going there and doing their own thing.